Etymology
by Tsarina Torment
Summary: Twenty-six 100-word drabbles about Ulquiorra, each representing a single letter.
1. A is for Apathy

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

A is for Apathy

Unless he was ordered to, he would never react to anything thrown his way. The Sexta could be as rowdy as he wished, provided that it didn't interfere with his orders. The Octava could be as insane as he wished, provided that he didn't try and experiment on anything out of bounds. He was out of bounds. His creator had expressed as such. The same went for the Quinta. He could be as creepy as he wished, provided that he didn't disobey orders as he did. He didn't feel anything himself. He just obeyed the wishes of those that did.

**Exactly 100 words. Unlike other drabble series I'm doing for other fandoms, I'm not confident enough in my knowledge of the characters to do one spanning all characters, so I'm just going to do an A-Z list, with the main character always being Ulquiorra. If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free (but remember I'm only doing one per letter).**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	2. B is for Belong

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

B is for Belong

He had nothing of his own. Not truly. Even his thoughts were only for the sake of his leader, his lord. His eyes were those of his lord's – through them he could show those who needed to know everything he ever saw – and his words were those his lord implanted within him. He scolded his peers and subordinates for insubordination, because they did not understand that they were owned, body, mind and soul, by the former Shinigami. Free will was something they were not allowed to express, because they lived purely for their lord. They lived and died for him.

**Exactly 100 words. If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free (but remember I'm only doing one per letter).**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	3. C is for Care

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

C is for Care

The words that came out of his lord's mouth and the emotions flickering in his eyes rarely matched up. He would say that they were dear to him, but his eyes viewed them as sacrifices. It didn't concern him. He was strong enough to stay alive, and so the idea that he was little more than a mindless soldier in a sacrificial army meant little to him. His fellow arrancar began to fall as he watched. It was what they had been created for, and he found no room within himself to care that he too was expected to fall.

**Exactly 100 words. If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free (but remember I'm only doing one per letter).**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	4. D is for Death

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

D is for Death

He remembers little before his rebirth as an Espada. Certainly, he remembers nothing of his life as a human – it is only logic that tells him that he was once one. So he is confused when he sees the humans at a funeral, not understanding why they would bury an empty shell. The soul has long gone, either as a Whole or a Hollow, to their new home; living in either Hueco Mundo or Soul Society even if their bodies have long since decomposed. The humans' grieving reactions confuse him, because he might be dead, but he still feels alive.

**Exactly 100 words. Thanks to **Nebelsue **for this word. If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free (but remember I'm only doing one per letter).**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	5. E is for Emptiness

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

E is for Emptiness

The hole at the base of his throat, cutting through his collarbones, indicated that he was missing that which made humans, well… human. Emotions, especially those that had no use in battle – not that any had use in battle, just look at the sexta's ridiculous incompetence when he let his judgement get clouded during a fight – were completely useless and he did not feel them. He was content to do nothing that was not required of him. It was only when he had to spend time with the woman that he realised that perhaps he was missing out on something.

**Exactly 100 words. If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	6. F is for Fracciónes

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

F is for Fracciónes

He was one of the more independent Espada, stubbornly refusing to rely on anyone else and only allowing his lord to rely on him. He watched the sexta banter with his group of subordinates – all friends from when they were adjuchas, before they had been blessed with a Zanpakuto and becoming an arrancar. The octava continually created his own, just for a group of mindless slaves that could not flee when he wanted to experiment. The quinta treated his own like trash. The segunda and tercera also relied on their subordinates and he wondered why, when they were completely unnecessary.

**Exactly 100 words. Thanks to **Nebelsue **for this one! If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	7. G is for Girl

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

G is for Girl

The opposite gender never caught his attention. Why should they? The only females he ever interacted with on any real regular basis were his superior and her companions. Well, until the human female became his charge. That was when he realised that there were differences between the two genders, because he noticed that her peculiarities were shared with the female arrancar he had met. Other males – the quinta being a prime example of this – liked to boast supremacy of the male gender, but as far as he was concerned they were all equal so long as they served his lord.

**Exactly 100 words. If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	8. H is for Heart

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

H is for Heart

In his dutiful observations of the many humans that interacted with the substitute Shinigami, he was quick to notice the emphasis they put on one of their vital organs. It was understandable – they were called vital for a reason – but the symbol they used to denote it looked nothing like the organ that pumped their blood around their feeble bodies. He surmised, after conversations with the captured woman, that to them it was the physical representation of feelings. Why a physical representation was required puzzled him, but it was a riddle he would solve only as he crumbled to ash.

**Exactly 100 words. Thanks to **Higekimaru **for this one! If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	9. I is for Intellect

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

I is for Intellect

While his lord expected total obedience, he did not suffer fools lightly. Looking around at his fellow Espada, this was easy to see. The Octava was perhaps the most intelligent being he had ever met, and with the possible exception of the decima/cero none of them were stupid. Even the sexta, with his brash words and actions, proved himself worthy of his position with his analytical skills whilst fighting. As for himself, he prided himself on his ability to look at a person once and judge their power level, and used the exact amount of force necessary to defeat them.

**Exactly 100 words. Thanks to **Higekimaru **for this one! If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	10. J is for Jeopardy

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

J is for Jeopardy

His existence pleased him. He never had to deal with useless things such as emotions. They made people weak – look at how easy it was for him to manipulate the woman by using her friends as persuasion. Caring made you weak, more than any other emotion – even the other Espada didn't do something as stupid as care. But the woman was persistent. He could be heard noting her strong will, but when it began to threaten his own nihilistic beliefs walls he never thought he had started to crumble away. They crumbled and that made him die. He blamed her.

**Exactly 100 words. Thanks to **Higekimaru **for this one! If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	11. K is for King

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

K is for King

Different minds had different ambitions. He was content to serve – whatever his master wished for him to do, he would do in the most efficient way possible. His lord, on the other hand, would settle for nothing less than ruling. It was an honour to serve the future monarch, even if he was only ranked fourth despite his loyalty being the highest of the ten Espada. Other Hollows also aspired to rule – the sexta's foolish ambitions come to mind – but none would ever match up to his lord, for whom he would fight until his being was wiped from existence.

**Exactly 100 words. If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free.**

**My apologies for the sudden hiatus – for people that don't look at my profile, I had three major assignments to do, so all my fics had to go on hold.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	12. L is for Life

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

L is for Life

He doesn't remember his existence before he became a Hollow. He must have been human, but the details escape him. He observes the foolish humans as one that has died once and has no intentions of doing so a second time and wonders if he once had someone to hold, someone to love. Did he have friends that he would spend time with, or did he isolate himself, much like he does as a Hollow? How much of his original personality remains after the number of souls he's consumed? He can't image anything other than the emptiness that haunts him.

**Exactly 100 words. If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	13. M is for Mercy

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

M is for Mercy

The irony amuses him, as he lies on the ground with only half of his limbs intact. The Shinigami that cared too much for everyone – the one that spared the sexta because he could, and fought tooth and nail to save the woman that didn't need saving – was standing over him as a Vasto Lorde with a crimson cero powering up, ready to obliterate him. Humans are fickle. One moment they were stubbornly fighting for someone else, the next they'd let their inner darkness take over. The cero tears through him, sealing his fate, but he feels a morbid satisfaction.

**Exactly 100 words. Thanks to **Higekimaru **for this one! If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	14. N is for Need

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

N is for Need

To rely on another was to admit to a weakness, so didn't that make all the Espada weak? They all relied on their lord, willingly or not, because without him they were no better than any other Hollow. They'd each been promised something, something so valuable to them that they had had no choice but to accept, provided they followed his orders to the letter. Some were promised power, some protection. He was promised a purpose. Serving his lord gave him a reason to exist, to emerge from the endless slumber within which he waited for his existence to end.

**Exactly 100 words. If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	15. O is for Others

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

O is for Others

He doesn't feel superior to them, per say, but there are times when he would dearly love to label them as trash and bar them entry to the meeting room. The primera is ridiculously lazy, while the segunda and sexta both have superiority complexes, evident from the lack of total respect they give their lord. The quinta, octava and decima (null) also subtly challenge him, and he doesn't understand it. Why are they not all like himself and the tercera, loyal beyond all comprehension? He doesn't like them, but he puts up with them, because that's what his lord desires.

**Exactly 100 words. If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	16. P is for Pray

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

P is for Pray

It is an act he has seen humans do many times, and he still thinks no better of it than the first time he witnessed people in a large stone building pressing their palms together or bowing their heads. Different people across the world would take different stances and use different words, but their intentions were the same. They were begging a higher being for something, or thanking the same deity for something that had happened through mere coincidence. He had no need to partake in such an activity – he was more powerful, and more real, than their imaginary comforts.

**Exactly 100 words. Thanks to **Nebelsue **for this one! If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	17. Q is for Quizzical

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

Q is for Quizzical

He didn't like to admit it, even to himself, but there were times when his normal thinking processes slipped. The woman, he soon found, was the main cause of this as she spouted nonsense about human beliefs that made no sense. One time that sticks in his memory is when he snapped and confronted her about the heart. He wasn't used to feeling interested in human matters, a discomfort he covered with veiled threats of ripping her apart to find it. It was almost a shame, in a way, that he died before he could fully indulge in his curiosity.

**Exactly 100 words. Thanks to **Higekimaru **for this one! If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	18. R is for Recruitment

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

R is for Recruitment

The birth of a fellow arrancar was always something special to watch. It was what bound them all together – made them brothers and sisters under their lord and father. He wondered, sometimes, why those Hollows in particular were chosen to have their masks removed. What was so special about the Hollow that slept in a nest of thorns, tired of life but unable to die? What was so special about the first arrancar – a group of Adjuchas who worshipped one of their own as king? He looked around his fellow Espada, wondering if it wasn't for their loyalty, then what?

**Exactly 100 words. Thanks to **Higekimaru **for this one! If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	19. S is for Sky

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

S is for Sky

If there was one thing that seemed to stretch on forever, aside from the white sands, it was the vast expanse of nothingness above him, always dark with its crescent moon the only source of light. He liked it that way. It was the epitome of freedom, where he could spread his wings and fly wherever he wanted. Under it, he could be himself, not some mindless puppet, as he released for a second time, confident that the moon would keep his little secret, as it was the only thing that saw him and survived. It made him feel alive.

**Exactly 100 words. Thanks to **Nebelsue **for this one! If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	20. T is for Time

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

T is for Time

He had no reason to count the days, hours, minutes and seconds of existence that he slept away in his bed on thorns. His life had no schedule – he drifted from dream to dream as his consciousness saw fit and paid no attention to anything surrounding him. This all changed when he had a rank, for with rank came responsibilities. He would leave his chambers at a specific moment in the morning, and return like clockwork in the evening – or what passed for morning and evening in that place. For a free spirit it was the heaviest duty of all.

**Exactly 100 words. Thanks to **Doggyband **for this one! If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	21. U is for Ulquiorra

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

U is for Ulquiorra

The first time his lord says it, he knows instantly that it is his name. He doesn't know why it seems to fit so well, but he knows that he could never have another. It was as if the connection was already there. Was it his name when he was still alive? If so, how did his lord know that? It's a name without a meaning, as empty as his existence had always been. Perhaps that is why it fits him so well. But none of this matters, he decides, because it is his name, and as unique as him.

**Exactly 100 words. If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	22. V is for Vengeance

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

V is for Vengeance

It was a language everyone could understand, whether human, Shinigami or Hollow and, for all his appreciative riddles, sometimes simple was the best. He would kill someone, or otherwise provoke them in the case of the woman's abduction, knowing full well that the desired target would follow of their own accord. It was almost laughably easy, if he were one to laugh, how the trash that thought themselves perfect could be manipulated so easily. Shinigami avenged the souls Hollows ate, humans avenged the deaths of their loved ones and him? Well he just took advantage of the weakness they offered.

**Exactly 100 words. Thanks to **espadaforever **for this one! If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	23. W is for White

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

W is for White

His peers were his polar opposite in colour – the peers he gave no heed to because they could never really claim to be on his level – so he always stood out, as if there was a target painted on him. It's easy to get stronger when you stand out, he quickly realised as he finished destroying one opponent to be immediately faced with another. There was no rest until he hid away from the world and its dark inhabitants. It became the colour he associated with strength, so it pleased him that it was the colour of his new home.

**Exactly 100 words. Thanks to **Higekimaru **for this one! If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	24. X is for Xiphoid

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

X is for Xiphoid

Put a sword in anyone's hand and they become deadly. He, on the other hand, preferred not to use his weapon if it wasn't necessary. His hand could pierce his fallen enemy's chest just as well, and it saved the bother of cleaning the blade of the blood of whichever trash he had put down. A blade was all very well, but if used correctly, anything could be deadly, and that was what he excelled at. A well-aimed cero could annihilate or incapacitate, and attacks could be returned with a gesture. His blade was sharp, but so was his mind.

**Exactly 100 words. Thanks to **MiracleAngel500 (Guest) **for this one! If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	25. Y is for Yes

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

Y is for Yes

It was a simple word, but one that could mean so much. It was one he said several times, mainly to his lord in response to an order or a request, but also when explaining things to his sometimes mentally challenged peers. The first time he'd said it, agreeing to serve his lord faithfully and to the best of his ability, it had felt like so much more than just the three letters it was comprised of in the English language, or two in Spanish: 'sí'. Because that first agreement was when he sold his soul to the true devil.

**Exactly 100 words. Thanks to **MiracleAngel500 (Guest) **for this one! If anyone has a word they'd like to suggest, feel free.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


	26. Z is for Zero

**Disclaimer: I don't own **_Bleach_**.**

Z is for Zero

It represented both the beginning and the end, because before their lives began, they were nothing, and here he was, crumbling back into nothing just as he finally understood. Really, he thought as he died, life was fleeting, even for a being such as him. In the grand scheme of things they were just part of existence's timeline. Their lives held no real meaning beyond their pitiful scope, and even he, with eyes that could record everything they saw was only privy to a sliver of the truth. Now it was time to regress to nothing, and he accepted it.

**Exactly 100 words. Thanks to **Higekimaru **and **MiracleAngel500 (Guest) **for this one!**

**I've really enjoyed writing these, and my apologies to everyone whose words I didn't use – thank you for all your suggestions!**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


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